May 21 is Community Day in Pokemon GO, and the featured Pokemon this time is Alolan Geodude. Each Community Day event runs from 11am to 2pm in your local time, and with only a three-hour window, you need to maximize your time and spend it wisely. Here are some tips to get the most out of your May 2022 Community Day and help you find both shiny and competitive Alolan Geodudes.
Make Sure You Have All Buffs Running
By “buffs” we mean Star Piece, Lucky Egg, Incense and Lures. Star Pieces increase your Stardust rewards, Lucky Eggs increase your experience earned, and Incense adds more chances for Alolan Geodude to appear. Lures, however, require you to stand near the Pokestop that you’ve used it on, so plan accordingly. To maximize the three hours you’ve got, you’ll need six Star Pieces, six Lucky Eggs, and one Incense and Lure. The latter two are buffed during Community Day hours to last the entire duration of the event.
One thing to keep in mind if you’ve been away for some time: there is a new Lure bonus where the more Trainers that work together capturing Pokemon around a single Lured Pokestop will increase the experience bonus from 300% to 400%. Stacking this with a Lucky Egg will increase your experience earned to eight times the normal value.
Purchase the Special Research Story and Event Bundles
While not everyone can spend money freely on video games, the Special Research Story: A Rocky Road bundle is only a dollar (or equivalent in your local currency) and is worth grabbing for the extra rewards. The Event Bundles, on the other hand, are a little pricier at 975 PokeCoins (about $8), but if you’re out of Lucky Eggs, Incubators or Star Pieces, they can be a more cost effective way of obtaining them.
Stock Up on Pinap Berries
Pinap Berries and Silver Pinap Berries double the candy received when you catch Alolan Geodude. Obviously this is extremely helpful for raising and evolving them into Alolan Golem. You want to stockpile them leading up to the event as much as possible, but in the event you run out, the Field Research during Community Day hours tend to reward Pinap Berries more often than the others. You should always aim to Pinap Berry the Alolan Geodudes during the event, as the buff stacks with the Community Day double Candy Bonus.
Evolve Your Good Alolan Geodudes
Alolan Geodude, when evolved into Alolan Golem, will learn Rollout — a Fast Attack with low power but very high energy generation. This is an extremely potent Rock type move, and it seems to tie competitively with Spark, a similar Electric type move. Rollout will definitely shake up the meta in PVP, so if you capture some stellar Alolan Geodudes, make it a priority to evolve them during the Community Day event. Just because you caught an Alolan Geodude during the event does not mean it’ll automatically evolve into Alolan Golem with Rollout. You must evolve it during the window which ends two hours after the event does.
Take Snapshots During the Event for Increased Spawns
During the event there is an increased chance for a Pokemon sighting via Snapshot Photobombing. We recommend taking a handful of Snapshots when you have some downtime. You can only get a total of five photobombs from the Community Day event, but if you’re hunting for shiny Alolan Geodude, each encounter is important.
Complete Field Research Tasks
While grinding out Alolan Geodude spawns is the name of the game during this Community Day, do not neglect your Field Research. Often, they reward bonus encounters with Alolan Geodude, something productive to do if you’re waiting on respawns. Similarly, they also reward Pinap Berries, which as mentioned above, help you raise and evolve your Alolan Geodudes into Alolan Golems. Even if you’re sitting around a Lured PokeStop, it’s important to knock these out often for the rewards.
Bring Food and Water and Hit Up A Hotspot
If this is your first Community Day event, you may not be accustomed to the faster playing pace. You will be moving around and engaging with other players more often than normal, so it’s recommended that you pack a water bottle and some snacks. If you do not know where to go, parks and main streets of cities tend to have groups of PokeStops and increased activity, in general. You can also try visiting websites that specialize in PokeStop map data to find a hotspot in your area.
That’s it for this list of tips. Best of luck with your shiny odds, trainers!
